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Broken sewer line causes big stink in Mandeville

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David Wittner, a supervisor in the Mandville Public Works Department, looks over location of sewer line break near the intersection of East Causeway Approach and Monroe Street.
(Kim Chatelain, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

A break in a sewer line near Old Mandeville early Tuesday (March 25) sent workers scrambling to fix the problem before it caused backups into neighborhoods near the lakefront. Trucks were brought in to collect wastewater before it reached the break and haul it to the city's treatment facility.

Late Tuesday afternoon, the city issued an alert asking all residents on the east side of Mandeville - an area bounded roughly by Jackson Avenue, Causeway Boulevard, Lakewood Heights and Lake Pontchartrain - to refrain from using water and sewer as much as possible so that the repair could completed quickly. West side residents were not affected.

The city hopes to complete the repair work around 7 p.m. The east bound lane of Monroe Street was closed because of the work.

Public Works Director David deGeneres said the break had not impacted residential service but he predicted it could have posed a problem later in the evening, when usage reaches its peak. The break occurred in a line buried about 8 feet underground near the intersection of the East Causeway Approach Road and Monroe Street. The pipe feeds wastewater to the treatment plant from about one-third of the city.

Efforts to reach the break were hampered by the fact that the line runs beneath a 30-inch drainage pipe. Workers must also be careful not to cut electrical, telephone, gas or other utility lines in the immediate area, deGeneres said.

A Mandeville public works employee making a routine check of the sewerage lift station at the intersection noticed that a sinkhole had formed next to the station and a traffic signal utility box was listing as a result. The worker notified a supervisor and the city quickly began efforts to identify the exact location of the underground break and to reach it to make repairs.

Workers were working quickly to correct the problem before sewerage began to back up through manholes in neighborhoods.